Before last night, it had been a while since I'd had a completely sleepless night. The reason? Last night the Aurora came back in a major way, with what I would say is easily one of the top 3 geomagnetic storm events that I've witnessed in northeast Minnesota. I say came back because for the last few years we've been in solar minimum and aurora events have been pretty scarce. I remember back in 2019 spaceweather.com stated that if forecasters are correct, the next solar maximum could be in full swing by 2023. That prediction appears to be correct.
I went out about a half hour after sunset and stayed out pretty much the entire night. Since getting home around 3:00 AM I've been working on the images and timelapse videos that I made. One of the most remarkable characteristics of this storm was how long the corona lasted (the feature that you see when you look straight up into the sky, where it looks like the lights are streaming down from the heavens). The corona lasted for most of the night and there really weren't any significant lulls in activity. The lights were bright and active all night long, with only a few very brief moments where they quieted down before flaring back up again. Awesome doesn't even come close to describing the experience.
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